The thing about The Dark Knight is that nobody there hoped to make a billion with it. Batman Begins was a modest success, and they expected TDK to perform the same. It's just the hype around Ledger's death AND that the film was surprisingly well done that it made those huge numbers. But the point is that they never intended to make that HUGE box office smash hit, they just intended to make a good film. And if you ask me, it shows.

nuTrek Into Darkness was intended to make big bucks first, by copying elements from all successful films coming before it. They wanted to expand the foreign market, so they put London in it and advertised the hell out of that. They wanted TDK and Avengers numbers, so they tried to cash in on that now rather stereotypical super villain with a twisted plan story, and went all out trying to sell this as this DARK film. And they even included the glass prison from Avengers and a forced version of the hero to villain dialog from TDK. And they looked back at what Trek film was the most popular, and ripped that off as much as they could.

STD just feels pretty much in your face to me in that regard.

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A movie aiming low should not be praised for hitting that target.